“The X Factor” Renewed, Presumably Thinks America Has Talent Left

We did a quick Google/Onion search beforehand and came up with not much (this, on Miley Cyrus, is probably closest) but we nevertheless know, we know: we’re not the first to make this joke, we are old, we are hacks, we need to get off the stage, we are typing this with tomato dripping off our face and egg off the tomato paths left on our face and whatever else those kids throw to heckle, because we’re old hacks, man.

With that said: at the rate The X Factor and its competitors are going, America is in grave danger of running out of undiscovered talent. Unless there’s a drastic shift in people’s TV-watching tastes, something like how everyone’s stopped using paper entirely, the country will have to turn to farming talent in Toddlers and Tiaras, recycling old talent and doing away with criticism entirely, afraid of tampering with what they’ve got.

Ahem. Ratings scares and baseball pre-emptions haven’t thwarted The X Factor so far, and it’s such an institution overseas that a second season was probably inevitable. In case you wanted the cold numerical network reasoning, though, here it is: “[The show]has significantly improved Fox’s year-over-year time period performance on Wednesday and Thursday nights among total viewers by +78% and +38%, respectively, and among Adults 18-49 by +37% and +41%.”